


you dangle on the leash of your own longing; your need grows teeth

by forest_creatures



Series: how shall i hold back my soul from touching yours [1]
Category: The Wayhaven Chronicles (Interactive Fiction)
Genre: (That deserves a tag all on its own), Almost Love Confessions, Angst, Blood and Injury, F/M, Hurt, Mommy Issues Hinted At, Nate defending the Detective, Nate's Fangs, Pre-Relationship, Tragedy and Wanting, Violence, angsty kiss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-07
Updated: 2021-02-07
Packaged: 2021-03-12 05:00:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29254848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/forest_creatures/pseuds/forest_creatures
Summary: In the end, it’s the rogues that tear him from her side.In the midst of a fight, Nate saves the Detective. It is catastrophic, for many reasons.
Relationships: Female Detective/Nathaniel "Nate" Sewell
Series: how shall i hold back my soul from touching yours [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2148186
Comments: 10
Kudos: 24





	you dangle on the leash of your own longing; your need grows teeth

**Author's Note:**

> Ah, this... completely got away from me. I initially intended it to be something completely different, mildly inspired by the rumors of a fight happening in the next demo, and then it became _this_ and took on a life of its own... consider this a hypothetical scene for Nate and my woefully emotionally repressed detective, who seems to only be able to share her feelings in the middle of chaos. This is... very unedited, honestly, and it probably shows. Alas, here it is.

In the end, it’s the rogues that tear him from her side.

She loses Nate, despite his best attempts to stay near her. Bravo spreads out and squares off across what was once a large, flat warehouse. The space collapses in on itself, pathways opening and exits closing as the fight rages on. She darts from corner to corner, dipping behind a stack of boxes for a brief reprieve, checks her DMB, _running low,_ and her volt gun—how much charge is left in it, she can’t say, and doesn’t have time to ponder—and readies herself for the fray again.

(The air sizzles with magic, thick enough to choke on; scent of ozone, smoke, rotting through, tearing at her lungs. Magic is unrepentant in its destruction, and the violence it can inflict is smeary, ruthlessly kaleidoscope.) 

Adam makes a target of himself, broad, large, sharp as a blade in hand as he tosses a supernatural into a nearby wall. They coalesce around him and he dispatches them with the hard-won ease of centuries past. Morgan spits curses and bares her teeth and snarls, her attacks wolfish. When she comes close, Amaia’s head pounds, her ears ringing like fingernails clawing down a chalkboard. Farah ducks and dodges and scraps at the edges, picking off would-be flanks with sharp jabs and razorblade terror in her eyes. 

Like a vicious sort of mockery, Nate’s level-toned lesson filters through the snap-pop of her thoughts: _each supernatural race will have its own strengths and weaknesses_ —she grips her volt gun, stills her shaking hands, and waits for an opening— _but for now your best option is to just defend and then run._

He’ll hate her for this later.

(The rogues, Adam had said, were unorganized and unpredictable and small in number. They would flee at the first show of force.)

She tears from the makeshift cover. Half in shadow, and still several heads snap toward her all at once, teeth of varying size baring in hunger pangs for the adrenaline-tinged blood coursing through her veins. 

Her palms are slick. She does not flinch. Waits for them to come for her, because they will.

Nate calls her name across the warehouse. She can’t look at him.

The first of them come, like clockwork.

A fresh-faced vampire grins with all his teeth as she brandishes her flimsy volt gun at him, heart smacking in her chest and body thrumming with that rabbit-heart urge to run kicking under her skin. He disappears, as expected _(_ Nate, laughing, _don’t worry, I won’t use my full abilities_ —and the heat of his hand on her arm, the last time she’d let him touch her before stomping out that strange _feeling_ blooming in her chest. _Agent Sewell,_ she’d pulled away, shunning his open hands with soft/hard formality.)

She bends her knees, fingers catching on the DMB spray, waits for the faint brush of air, that split second tell-tale sign of supernatural speed, he’ll no doubt come from behind and—

A soft _whoosh_ to her left, she spins, ducks, raises the DMB and meets his sharp-teethed grin with one of her own as the air takes on that sickly tang of red. A curse, a snarl, she steps back to shock him.

The vampire’s arm shoots out, catching her in the throat instead, the world blurs and shatters and pain splits down and cuts off her air, and suddenly her back is to the wall and her skull cracks on the concrete and her side _screams_ and his eyes are on fire and _no, no, that isn’t how it’s supposed to go—_

She hears, faintly, like a dream: _Detective!_ —cruel fingers tangle in the set of her braid, ripping it loose, forcing her head back, throat bared— _don’t touch her!_

She is not in her body and it is _Murphy,_ hissing in her ear that they will do such _wonderful things_ together, but. _But. But. Get up._ She drives the volt into his side, and his body jerks, a wet groan of pain breathed on her throat, a hint of teeth snapping just beyond the threshold of her skin.

Again. _Again._ She shocks him, body shuddering, eyes squeezed tight—detached and yet fully inside herself, the body remembering even as her mind clamps down around the vulnerable flesh of her sanity—and then he’s _gone._ Torn from her, torn through her. 

Nate, tangled up and body-close to her attacker, hands curled tightly in his clothes, pushing back, looming near and large; terrifying, terrified. Lips curled back and teeth elongated, razor sharp and nothing at all like he was only a few hours ago. She’s never seen such a stark display of his nature before, and it gut-punches her.

The boy-vampire (no older than twenty, and infantile in the face of _Nate, Nate, Nate,_ who is so much older and so much stronger than he ever wanted to be) struggles, but the DMB’s left him breathless, unable to do much more than collapse under Nate’s strength. The sick sound of crunching bone, skin tearing, and her vision swims, her legs shaking.

(Adam tells her with hard-mouthed professionalism that the most surefire way to kill a vampire is by decapitation, or destroying the heart. He straightens up, his eyes narrowing, and says: _but you needn’t concern yourself with this._ She doesn’t argue, but she finds the books she needs all the same.)

The floor is cold. The back of her neck is wet, sticky. _It is a terrible time to start bleeding,_ she thinks to herself, and wants to laugh. She will, when her head stops spinning and her eyes stop rolling uselessly in her skull. Maybe the rogues will bandage her up; she’s only good for the one thing, after all.

The fight is over in seconds, too fast for her to follow, aside from the flash of arms and teeth and a pained yell from Nate, which makes her heart lurch, bile sluice up.

_Snap!_ and shuddering silence.

Her head lulls to the side, and she manages to focus long enough to see the _boy-Murphy_ hit the ground, neck bent unnaturally, eyes still open, breathing just barely. He isn’t dead, but it will take hours, maybe even days, to fully heal from a cracked spine or broken neck. 

It will be painful. It is not a kind way to dispatch of anyone, even a vampire. _Especially_ a vampire. They feel everything.

His saliva is still slick on her throat, and she doesn’t pity him.

Nate is not there, and then he is. Terror, then relief.

(His hands were warm, she remembers. She didn’t let him touch her then, and she should have.)

“Amaia— _Amaia,_ look at me.” Nate stumbles into view, taking up everything, the entire world blacking out except for his eyes, deep enough to drown in. His head twists, looking over his shoulder, and his _neck—_

“You’re hurt,” she gasps, clutching his arms weakly.

A raw, gaping bite, jagged in its shape. Like her own, where the neck meets the shoulder. Healing sluggishly. _Boy-Murphy._ “I will be fine,” he rasps. Blood spills, staining his skin. He’s panicked, frantic as his hands wrap around her jaw, forcing her to meet his gaze. “Look at me, please— I need to move you, I’m sorry—” 

She hears Morgan yell from afar, and Adam snap something back. Orders barked. The sound of fighting increases, horrible and roaring.

Nate slides one hand under her legs, the other around her back, bringing her closer to his torn throat, tang of iron. Body-close again. 

The world spins and sways and blurs again, focus lost at a neck-break speed ( _neck-break,_ and she wants to laugh again, _how morbid,_ after she’s done being sick from motion sickness. Rebecca’s voice slices in her head: _really, dear girl, that’s the least of your concerns, isn’t it?_ but her mother has never called her _dear anything,_ andthe illusion needs work.)

They collapse into a darker corner, half-hidden from view. He’s smarter than this, must know that they can smell the sluggish blood at the back of her head from a mile off, and so close like this, he must be choking on the scent of it by now. Or maybe his wounds mask the scent; with gossamer-thin awareness, she thinks _they match,_ and clings onto him tighter.

“He _bit_ you.” 

“That doesn’t matter.” He crouches over her, shielding her from the ever-present violence just outside her field of vision. He keeps one hand on her jaw, the other frantically moving down her side, and pain throbs through her at the press of it—she breathes, aching right to the marrow, the adrenaline still singing in her veins, and air comes in shaky, exhales with a rasp. 

His brow crushes in what must be fear, and his fangs are still down, gleaming dully in the stark, shadow-ridden light. “Your ribs are cracked.”

“You’re not healing,” she slurs, watching the dull red of his throat. The pain is setting in, vision fading in and out, and he was right, she should have _run._ If she had, he wouldn’t be hurt.

“Amaia, please, please, _focus._ Stay awake.”

The hand at her jaw trembles, scaling up the side of her face to touch at the wound behind her skull. She hisses, groans, rolls back into his palm.

“I need to get you out of here.” His breath is coming faster now, and she wants to say _calm down._

Maybe she does, because his grip on her tightens, trembles. 

“I am— you’re going to be alright, okay? You just need to stay awake. Can you do that for me?”

“Sorry for the blood, I know it,” her thoughts stretch and shrink, and her voice sounds miles away, close as a whisper. “I know it bothers you— ah, _god.”_ She groans, slumping forward, into his shoulder, and it’s _his_ blood that stains slickly on her cheek.

(Later, he’ll look at her like he doesn’t quite know what to do with her. Like he didn’t know how she watched and listened, like he thought he was so much better at hiding. She will want to ask him if he resents her for it, but in the end, she won’t. After all, no one likes it when their mask is torn away, and she’s content to let him keep his, the same way she keeps her own.)

“Just stay awake for me.” 

“‘m sorry he bit you.” He’s cradling her now, chin barely brushing the crown of her head, and she wonders what he’s looking for, over her shoulder. 

He says something—rolling and soft, frantic and devout, in a language she doesn’t know. She hears it mostly in the echo of his chest. 

The hearing is always the last thing to go, she’s found. When Murphy had torn her neck open, she’d lost her vision first.

His breath is warm on her ear as he both clings and pushes her back, back up against the wall. “Amaia, I need you to listen to me. I have to help the others, or else we—” he chokes, shakes his head. “I will be nearby, and I won’t let anything happen to you.”

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep, Agent.” She mumbles, forcing her eyes to open again, to take in the full weight of his gaze, painfully alert. 

He’s _leaving._

_He’s leaving,_ and panic rips through her, a moment of serrated clarity.

If he leaves, he won’t know. He won’t know that she’s sorry she didn’t kiss him, back at that ridiculous, ridiculous carnival. She should have said yes to his _date,_ instead of stringing herself up on all her old fears. He won’t know that he’s the bruise-bloom in her chest and the hollow space between her ribcage and her heart. 

She clings to him, delirious, and shudders. “Please don’t leave.” 

“I will be back, I swear it. But if I don’t help the others, we won’t make it out of here.”

Somewhere, she can hear Farah’s pained cry, Adam’s stumbling voice, and the world spins on its axis again.

_(no no no no he’s going to die he’s going to die she is her mother’s daughter and he is going to—)_

“But you’re hurt.” 

The last rational part of her knows he isn’t human, he will heal, he will be _fine,_ but it’s drowned out by the panic and the body-terror, sliding to the very back of her mind.

He pulls away, taking her heart with him, and in one last stretch she clings onto his wrists, pulling him back. “I’m _sorry,_ I’m sorry I didn’t— didn’t _listen,”_ she says, or tries to. The words are clear in her skull and soft on her tongue, and her body aches with a rasping cry.

“I’m sorry I— Nate, please don’t go.” Her heartbeat bangs like gunshots in her ears, words slip-sliding in her mouth. “You’re _hurt,_ and I know what happens. It happened to my mom and— I know what—”

“Amaia, please. I have to—”

And in an act of desperation, she pulls him into her.

It’s a messy thing. His chest collides with hers, one palm propping up beside her head, and it sends another bout of dull-blade pain through her side, right between the third and fourth rib.

Her hands stumble into a kind of grasp, one sliding into his dark hair (thick and soft and days from now, she’ll spend hours trying to remember the feeling of it between her fingers,) the other hitching onto his shoulder, opposite the wound. 

His lips collide with hers, messy and uncivilized, and they both falter.

His _mouth—_ she’s spent how many hours, stealing thoughts of him like a thief in the night, guilty with her own want? 

_She needs him to know._ She needs him to know, her head spinning and her world collapsing into blackness as her eyes slide shut, fearful, devotional. 

Nate gasps against her mouth, the hand not beside her head bearing on her shoulder, sliding to the back of her neck, drawing her to him, and she _loses_ herself in it.

It’s a clash and a pyre and a culmination and the _wrong time,_ his mouth on hers. Their noses knock, his fingers sticking to the matted mess of her hair. Desperate, all iron and fear. 

He groans like a sob, pouring into her, molten gold and terrible love, and she slides her tongue between his lips, tasting his teeth, still edged and elongated and sharp. His taste sticks to her teeth like bread. 

It’s _everything._ His kiss brands her, tears her down to the marrow, unraveling in his hands, and there is nothing else, _nothing else—_

Her tongue slides across his fangs, splitting open, the wound sudden and quick. Blood spills, and for one world shattering heartbeat, he chases the taste of her further and further, his grip infinitely tighter. She doesn’t pull away; she doesn’t even try.

Nate tears from her, near violent in his retreat, and later she will remember that it took only a few drops of her blood for Murphy to raise his thralls and nearly tear them all apart. His lips are red, his fingers rising to touch them only to rip away.

She gasps, freezes. “I— I’m so sorry, I didn’t—”

Nate is stumbling, rising to his feet, pulling away, and she swallows, the wet heat of her own blood coating her mouth as surely as it drips down the back of her neck.

“Please— please _stay here,_ and stay safe,” he begs, and the guilt rips through her, terribly clear against the hazy backdrop of her slipping consciousness; _what have I done, what have I done?_

“I will be back. I promise.”

There is one last, stark, terrible moment of clarity before she slides into the irresistible pull of unconsciousness and blood loss, what she learned at her mother’s knee: there is no act of love that is not also a wound, inflicted.

The bite at Nate’s throat is gone, and so is he.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! I'm also on tumblr, under the url @forestcreatures.


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